I've been with dreamhost for 10 years and I was effected by that, but it didn't really bother me because they sorted it out quickly and the card was re-credited pronto. They had another nightmarish dns disaster a few years back that took them a couple of days to sort out - but look, stuff happens, and I've always appreciated their honesty and regular status updates.

Fact is, if your website is mission-critical you shouldn't be going with shared hosting anyway - but for my purposes (personal and a not-for-profit club site) it's been just fine. The support is excellent - I have just been emailing with them over the last couple of days about some plans for the club site, and I even got responses back over the weekend.

Guilty as charged ;-)

Actually - I once went to slashdit.org by accident and there were ads there. Don't know who is making money from that.

It also displayed that tired old assumption that only "guys" come to slashdot. It's bad enough going to an ad site without being called a "computer-type guy".

I would agree - nothing sexier than a man who can cook!

In fact even if you can't cook - an array of yummy finger foods from a fancy deli with a nice bottle of wine is just fine.

Link?

Oh we exist, it's just some of us would never, ever go out with a geeky guy.

Don't get me wrong - I love geeky guys... as friends. Just never been attracted to one. All boyfriends and eventual husband have worked in non-tech fields. I get enough computers at work - don't need to talk about them at home too.

I could not care less about valentine's day. Maybe it's because I'm not american but I've always thought it the most worthless piece of blatant commercial bullshit. Mother's day is only slightly less pointless (and I'm also a mother).

I expect a bit of fuss on my birthday, and hubby and I always, always book a babysitter and go out on our anniversary, and we both have a thing about starting the first second of the new year with a big kiss.... but valentine's day? Fergeddit - I don't need hallmark to tell me when to be romantic!

I could bite, but really, what's the point?

Carol the female slashdot reader

On the family negativism - it's not all bad. The other night I was reading Hitchhiker's to my 10yr old and he laughed so hard he fell off the couch. Then we went to youtube and watched some of the old tv episodes. He's also starting to get interested in computers and what I do for my job. Sure it can be hard when they're little, but having a kid around who gets a huge kick out of all my nerdy interests, and is also good fun to take camping, bike riding and x-country skiing, is worth all the sleep deprivation and potty nightmares he put me through years ago.

Shopping lists, did the kids do their homework, did I put the bin out, what time do I have to get up tomorrow, something I watched on telly that night.... hmmm George Clooney, my husband is George Clooney.... no that doesn't work, I wouldn't want to be married to him anyway... I know, George Clooney being fucked by Brad Pitt, now there's an image, yeah baby, do it!

That's the cervix! And I don't like anyone touching that.

To be fair, one of the three Amazon reviewers admits being a friend on the author's. One can only assume the other two are as well. I wonder if they even read the book as both reviews read like back page blurb and mention opening minds...

Also found the review impossible to read to the end - though after reading the disclaimer about the author being a mate of his I had my pinch of salt setting on full.

No I think the rep was deserved. I had the misfortune of being handed a Vista laptop when it was fairly newly released and it was slow and buggy. I couldn't shut it down, and there was some weird thing when you deleted files and it would randomly delete the parent folder. It improved with the service packs, and a complete rebuild, but it was never a happy experience. I have now rebuilt the same laptop with 7 and it's better in every conceivable way.

That so-called study is a fine example of lying with statistics - see debunking here http://www.stubbornmule.net/2009/09/baby-bounce/